The Chukchi Bible

by Yuri Rytkheu

  The guest was told to bed down in the polog’s right corner. Tynavana lay down beside him, then Imlyret. One of his wives lay on the other side of him, and finally Tynemlen, in the farthest corner.

  Imlyret had already told his daughter’s suitor that tonight Tynavana would lie with the honored guest, and Tynemlen, though he had felt a pinprick of jealousy, could not object as he had no claims over the girl as yet.

  For a time, he sat by the guttering brazier. When he fell asleep he slept like the dead, and was awakened by the bright chatter of the early-rising women, already making breakfast for their many guests.

  That morning Imlyret declared that he would accompany the expedition in the capacity of guide. His daughter Tynavana, her betrothed Tynemlen, and four more deer herders would be coming as well. Two men would drive the deer sleds, and the others would herd the deer they would be taking along as food and as replacements for the sled team.

  Tynavana continued to sleep beside Gavriil Sarychev and seemed content. Once she whispered happily, “Perhaps we will have a Tangitan baby,” to her moping betrothed.

  Tynemlen took the Sacred Book he had been given at the Anui market from its sack and showed it to Tangitan-Daurkin.

  “You can read Russian?” The Tangitan was surprised.

  “No,” answered Tynemlen, and sighed. “But I was hoping to learn that magic.”

  “It is not a simple matter,” Tangitan-Daurkin explained soberly. “Before you can learn to interpret the signs of human speech on these white sheets, you must first learn the Russians’ language.”

  “Maybe you can help me?” Tynemlen asked with hope in his voice.

  “Are you baptized?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Daurkin took up the Sacred Book, gingerly leafed the first page open, and read out in Russian, in a voice that carried:

  “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth . . . The earth was dark and empty, and there was darkness over the abyss, and the Holy Spirit flew above the waters. And God said: let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that it was good, and he divided light from darkness. And He called the light Day and the darkness Night. And there was evening and there was morning; that was the first day. And God said: let there be a firmament in the waters, and let it part the waters one from another . . .”

  Having ended in a mournful monotone, Tangitan-Daurkin then translated.

  Tynemlen did not know how to feel or what to think. Naturally these sacred words were not those of human memories or the storytellers’ tales of the world’s beginnings. Maybe that was precisely how the Tangitan world was created, while that of the Luoravetlan came about the way the ancient tales told it – with a Raven flying over a void, where there was neither light nor darkness, and defecating as he flew. When his stomach voided solid matter, the droppings made land and mountains; when he urinated, the liquid made rivers and lakes, whereas his effluvia made for tundra bogs and marshes. And then a little snow bunting pecked a hole in the hard sky to let in sunlight. The Creator God, Enantomgyn, did not participate directly, letting the Sacred Raven do all the work.

  Tynemlen had not expected the Russian explanation of how the world began to echo what he had known from childhood. But then, what had the world been like at the very beginning? Before the Raven took flight, before the God from the Sacred Book made heaven and earth? Maybe the Holy Spirit that flew over the waters, before it all began, was just another way of describing the Sacred Raven?

  Imlyret’s sled followed that of Captain Billings, with Tynemlen and Tangitan-Daurkin close behind. Whenever they stopped to rest and eat, usually in river valleys that sheltered the fires from the wind and had a supply of gorse for burning, Tynemlen stuck close to Tangitan-Daurkin. The other had been explaining to his inquisitive countryman the way that letters were connected to sounds made by speech. It was true, the Sacred Book was written in Russian, a language whose sound was as meaningless to Tynemlen as the burbling of a brook. Only rarely did he catch a familiar word – bread, tea, water – in the monotonous flow of sound. God, deer . . . Every day there were more of them, as though the brook was getting shallower, crossing stony rapids. Out of all the Russians, Gavriil Sarychev turned out to be the most curious. With the help of Tangitan-Daurkin he asked lots of questions, writing each word that was spoken in a notebook. He attempted Luoravetlan speech himself, sometimes mangling the words so hideously that the listeners burst into fits of laughter. Tynavana, who had grown very fond of Gavriil, spoke up for him. Learning from her, the young Russian often pronounced words the feminine way, which added to the herdsmen’s hilarity. It was strange, but by then Tynemlen had stopped feeling jealous of the young Russian. Perhaps this was because Gavriil was assiduous in teaching the young Luoravetlan Russian speech and Russian writing, spending hours with him by the fireside instead of resting. Bent over the Russians’ Sacred Book, the two of them seemed to forget the world. When the last twig of the fire had smoldered, Tynavana would slide over a stone moss lamp and gaze tenderly at the two men she loved, sitting side by side.

  At the start of 1794 Tynemlen returned to Uelen with his wife Tynavana and their infant son. The golden-haired baby had been named Mlatangin, in honor of his kinship not just with the Luoravetlan but with the Russians too.

  Meanwhile, the Russians’ explorations continued.

  In 1810 Gedenshtorm made it up the mouth of the Kolyma and into the Northeast, in search of new lands and isles.

  Ten or so years after him, Lieutenant F. P. Wrangel and F. F. Matyushkin, a school friend of Pushkin’s, explored the northeast shores of Siberia. For four years they lived among the Chukchi and were the first Europeans to learn of the existence of a large island in the Arctic Ocean, across from the Yakan promontory. The evidence was so compelling that F. P. Wrangel could report the island’s existence with all certainty. In time, it was to bear his name – Wrangel Island.

  The discovery of a route to North America via Siberia and a chain of islands in the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were rich in beaver and other valuable furs, made Chukotka a staging point on the journey to that promised land. The seafarer Chirikov brought six hundred beaver pelts from his voyage to America. This inspired the Russian merchants to organize a series of commercial expeditions to the Aleutian and Commodore Islands.

  More than forty such expeditions set off between 1743 and 1764.

  The riches of the American continent continued to lure Russian merchants. The Rylsk merchant Grigory Shelikhov created a mighty trading concern, with the support of the Golikovs, a merchant family from Irkutsk. The years 1783 to 84 saw the creation of the Northeast Trading and Manufacturing Concern; it was followed by the Predtechenskaya Company of the Pribylov Islands, the Unalashkinskaya Company of the Aleutians, and the North American Company, which was based in the Bering Strait.

  After Shelikhov’s death, the Russian government created a single Russian-American Company, and four years later it was headed up by Aleksandr Andreyevich Baranov.

  Many books have been written about the Russian-American Company, most of which depict its activities as progressive, even altruistic. But that all depends on one’s point of view. The Russians have always argued, and continue to argue today, that the influence of the Russian-American Company was beneficial to the local population. The merchants brought progress and organized religion to the aboriginal peoples of the isles in the northern Pacific Ocean, as well as to the natives of Alaska and Chukotka. Yet even Russian historians sometimes admit that not all was well in the doings of the enormous trade concern. First and foremost, the opportunistic extermination of the rich fauna of the Aleutian and Commodore Islands forever weakened the independent economic base of the native peoples. Encounters between Russian merchants and the Aleutians and Eskimos did not always end in brotherly embraces. The Russian historian S. Shashkov admits that the slaughter of natives reached such proportions that at times the sea current brought thousands of corpses to the shores of Kamchatka. To this we might
add the forced conversion of the Aleuts and Eskimos to Russian Orthodoxy. As a result of the Russian-American Company’s depredations, the native population of the islands became so sparse that they remain barely inhabited even today, while the people’s traditional customs have been replaced by the “more progressive Christianity.”

  In mid-June 1819, when the fast ice was all but melted from the shoreline, a ship arrived in Uelen. Mlatangin, peering from the beach, could see letters on the side of the vessel – and he could see, too, that the letters were not Russian.

  This was an American ship.

  The Whales and the Tangitans

  With the coming of the dawn, the Watcher would ascend the Crag overhanging Uelen and sit facing the sea. A long whalebone cap-peak, strapped to his head with nerpa-skin thongs, protected his eyes from the glare dancing over the ocean that stretched wide before him.

  They were waiting for the whale schools that migrated from the southern seas and through the neck of the Irvytgyr, headed for the plankton-rich shallows of the Arctic Ocean. Tidings from the southerly villages – Liuren, Uny yin, and Imtyk – announced the first kills of these marine giants.

  The light, sail-equipped skin boats had been dragged close to the shoreline, so they could be launched at a moment’s notice. The sharply honed spearheads of the enormous harpoons rested in their thick leather quivers; leather straps lay rolled up in neat, ready coils; garlands of taut pyh-pyhs, air-filled leather bags, carpeted the bottom of the boats.

  The hunters arose early, and their first glance was invariably at the Crag, atop which perched the day’s Watcher. The watchers were chosen from among the most experienced sea hunters, those who had the sharpest, farthest range of vision as well as a calm temperament.

  Mlatangin, a tall young man who was noticeably lighter skinned and lighter haired than his clansmen, seemed most anxious of all. It was to be his first time standing at the prow of his father’s boat, a long, heavy whale harpoon in his hand.

  He kept running out of the yaranga to peep at the top of the Crag and the motionless little figure of the Watcher. Bagging a whale was considered a special feat of valor, the mark of the best sea hunter. A supply of blubber oil might last a good few years,which meant that life-giving fire that brought heat and light during the worst of the frosty winter nights would not be extinguished inside the yaranga’s fur-lined polog. Blubber was also highly prized by the deer people, and could be traded for furs that would then be used to build a polog, or for winter clothing. Strips of whale skin with a layer of blubber still attached underneath – itgil’gyn – were considered a choice treat.

  For a youth such as Mlatangin, participation in a whale hunt was a rite of passage, which marked the beginning of his adult life as a full member of Uelen society, after which he would be given a vote in important decisions.

  When the Watcher rose to his full height and raised over his head a white ermine pelt, easily visible from afar, the men pushed six skin boats – all of Uelen’s hunting vessels, each of which belonged to a different hunter – into the water. The biggest boat was that of lucky, well-to-do Kotylyn. Originally one of the Tapkaran Luoravetlan, he now lived at the edge of the village farthest from the Crag. But it was the Enmyralin, the “Crag men” who lived closer to the Crag and Uelen’s stream, were considered to be the best whale hunters.

  As the boats softly hit the water and silently floated into the open sea, noise in the village ceased, too. Infants who might have wailed loudly were carried deep inside the pologs, and dogs were driven inside the chottagins so their barking would not spook the whale herd moving toward Uelen’s shingled spit.

  Mlatangin took his place at the prow, planting his feet securely on the boat’s wooden cross-plank. His long whale harpoon, its shaft slightly rough to prevent slippage, lay before him, its metal spearhead glinting in the sun. His heart beat faster and harder than usual, and his palms were slightly damp.

  From afar, the hunting boats under their white sails looked like enormous birds, silently floating toward the whale pod.

  One large whale swam slightly ahead of the rest, and was likely the pod’s leader. It didn’t dive deep, preferring to stay close to the surface of the water. Greenland whales – whom the Luoravetlan called lygireu – have a distinct way of spouting, in two streams, from both blowholes. Mlatangin instinctively understood that his father was steering a course for that very whale. His aim was to place the boat directly before the whale, between its wide-set eyes: whales saw better sideways than straight ahead. The gigantic animals sensed no danger. Soon you could see them not just when they broke the surface, but diving into the deep to inhale clouds of krill and plankton and then sieve the catch like steam through their whalebone whiskers.

  Apart from anxiety, Mlatangin also felt a kind of sacred fear: he was about to kill his remote ancestor, a creature that was – according to ancient lore – the progenitor of the sea hunters themselves.

  The whale came on fast. They had to get close enough to be certain of a kill.

  Mlatangin picked up the heavy harpoon shaft and slowly raised it above his head. The silence was broken only by the water slapping the bottom of the boat and the hiss of the whale spouts.

  He saw the astonishingly long, enormous body of the marine giant shoot up from the green watery depths. A moment more and the whale would lift the fragile boat on its mighty back and break it in two, upending his pursuers into the sea. Not one of them could swim. Once in the water, if there was no blown up pyh-pyh close to hand, Chukchi hunters quickly drowned. They didn’t struggle; according to their beliefs a man overboard was given up to the Master of Cold Seawater.

  The helmsman watched the approaching whale closely from his small wooden platform, which was level with the side of the boat. His job was to get close enough to the prey that the harpoon-man would be able to spear the whale, yet far enough away that the whale couldn’t dive underneath the boat.

  In a kind of transport of instinct, Mlatangin chose the perfect moment to launch his weapon. He put all his considerable strength into the throw, and barely avoided hurling himself atop the emerging giant together with his harpoon. The other hunters’ harpoons followed his. The neatly coiled straps came alive, pulling the blown-up pyh-pyhs aloft. As it felt the harpoons strike, the whale dove down with great speed, trailing the air bags behind. Sharply swinging the tiller and turning the sail, Mlatangin’s father steered their boat away from the pod, giving the other boats their place.

  Mlatangin’s boat was now at the end of the line. But the whale, marked by the cargo of his pyh-pyh, could no longer dive deep, and the other harpooners had an easier job of it. Tynemlen ordered the sail to be lowered and the boat left the general file. The hunters were pleased: the whale would be counted as the kill of that boat whose harpoons had hit it first.

  Now that the whale couldn’t dive, they finished him off with sharp spears mounted on long wooden shafts. You had to try to jab the heart, underneath the short front fin. The water grew red with blood. Now the hunters could shout across to one another.

  Mlatangin was slowly reeling in the pyh-pyhs on their straps, raw nerves giving way to release, satisfaction, and joy. The whale’s motionless body floated over the bloodstained water. The hunters rowed up to it. Mlatangin’s father leaned over the side of the boat, hooked a tail fin and pulled the carcass closer. He carved a large hole for the anchoring hooks and handed the big chunk of itgil’ gyn to Mlatangin, who sliced off a piece and put it in his mouth. This was a ritual gesture; having tasted the whale he himself had killed, the youth became an adult, and an equal among men. Mlatangin passed the rest of the itgil’gyn to his fellows in the boat. Soon the other boats rowed up, and between them, they formed a tugboat caravan. The wind was with them, so the hunters were spared the exhausting task of rowing to shore, though even under sail hauling the carcass back took the rest of the pale night, and dawn was just breaking when the boats finally neared Uelen’s shore.

  The people in the village had not slep
t. Children’s voices now rang out once more, the released dogs ran barking down the only street, copper pots and kettles clanged.

  Kalyantagrau was preparing for the ceremony. He brought out the big yarar drums, his ceremonial robes, the sacrificial vessels, and the carved figurines of marine animals, among which pride of place was held by a whale calf, expertly carved from dark wood.

  The klegran, where ceremonies were held, looked like a typical yaranga from the outside, but was bigger and had no sleeping polog. Meanwhile, its fire was made right in the center, underneath the smokehole. Whale vertebrae scattered along the walls served as stools. A mysterious gloom reigned inside, and the animal figurines that hung from thin leather thongs floated on the waves of blue smoke. Among them hung the glinting whale calf, Ancestor of the Uelen people.

  Mlatangin spotted young Korginau in the crowd of those who had come out to meet the hunters. The daughter of an old family friend, the shaman Kalyantagrau, Korginau was his betrothed. She stood close to the water’s edge, her feet, in their tall summer torbasses of bleached nerpa skin, almost touching the surf, atop a scattering of krill and looped, darkened strands of sun-dried seaweed.

  The last moments of the approach to shore are always the longest, stretching out ahead like an uncured hide thong.

  Now, finally, the nose of the boat touched the beach, its bottom hissing against the shingle. Mlatangin leaped ashore, splashing his high hunting torbasses. Although none of the greeters had been present at the hunt, all understood that he, Mlatangin, son of Tynemlen, had been the first to harpoon the sea giant. This was implied by the boat’s place at the head of the line and in the fact that Mlatangin was the first ashore.